Two Intriguing Developments in Marijuana Legalization

This story about the Oakland City Council’s decision not to go forward with a plan to let private companies start enormous “medical” pot farms has two intriguing subplots.

First, the Alameda County Attorney advised the members of the council that it was not clear whether they would be immune from federal prosecution if they approved the plan. This issue hasn’t come up yet because Prop 19 lost, but assuming some state goes pro-pot, it’s an inevitability. If a mayor or city council creates a system regulating cannabis production that is legal under state law and tries to tax it, will federal agents arrest them under federal drug trafficking statutes? I don’t think it’s a question of whether this would be legal but whether a federal prosecutor would be willing to take the political heat this would generate.

Second, small pot growers apparently lobbied the council not to pass the plan for mega-farms. Most analyses of the medical marijuana movement assume that the pot growers would become the vanguard for full legalization. But if you are a small grower, a big corporate producer of medical marijuana will easily be able to under-sell you and thereby reduce your profit. And if there is full legalization, small growers will be in the same position as small family farms trying to stay afloat in a market dominated by massive corporate farms. Some people were shocked that a number of small growers (and dispensary operators) opposed Prop 19, but that may become the normative stance over time once the implications of a corporate presence are more widely understood.